This edited collection explores the links between human capital (both in the form of health and in the form of education), demographic change, and economic growth. Using empirical as well as theoretical perspectives, the authors investigate several important issues in the context of human capital, namely population ageing, inequality, public policy, and long-term economic development. Ultimately, they demonstrate that the accumulation of human capital is of crucial importance to long-run economic growth.

During recent decades, Korea has been one of only a handful of countries that have made the successful transformation to become a developed nation by simultaneously achieving persistent economic growth combined with a democratic political system. Experts and political leaders worldwide have attributed this achievement to investments in people or, in other words, the power of education. Whilst numerous books have highlighted the role of industrial policies, technological growth, and international trade in Korea’s development process, this is one of the first to focus on the role of human capital. It shows how the accumulation of human capital aided transformation and helps explain the policies, strategies and challenges that Korea faces now and in the future.

The present paper takes a fresh theoretical and empirical look into the relationship between Wagner’s law and economic development. It introduces human capital into a classic two-sector model of unbalanced growth. It shows that, as an economy develops, changes in the relative returns to human capital and unskilled labor, as a result of changes to their relative scarcities, could have a significant impact on the size of the government sector, depending in part also on the difference in relative factor intensities between outputs of the private and government sectors. This conjecture is broadly supported by empirical evidence based on a cross-section analysis of a large sample of developed and developing countries.

Introduction -- Concepts and definitions -- Methodological issues -- Implementation and measurement issues -- Satellite account for education and training -- Human capital satellite account: an example for Canada -- Human capital country studies -- Recommendations and further work -- References

Human capital—the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives—is a central driver of sustainable growth, poverty reduction, and successful societies. More human capital is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies. Much of the hard-won human capital gains in many economies over the past decade is at risk of being eroded by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Urgent action is needed to protect these advances, particularly among the poor and vulnerable. Designing the needed interventions, targeting them to achieve the highest effectiveness, and navigating difficult trade-offs make investing in better measurement of human capital now more important than ever. The Human Capital Index (HCI)—launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project—is an international metric that benchmarks the key components of human capital across economies. The HCI is a global effort to accelerate progress toward a world where all children can achieve their full potential. Measuring the human capital that children born today can expect to attain by their 18th birthdays, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers and underscores the importance of government and societal investments in human capital. The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19 presents the first update of the HCI, using health and education data available as of March 2020. It documents new evidence on trends, examples of successes, and analytical work on the utilization of human capital. The new data—collected before the global onset of COVID-19—can act as a baseline to track its effects on health and education outcomes. The report highlights how better measurement is essential for policy makers to design effective interventions and target support. In the immediate term, investments in better measurement and data use will guide pandemic containment strategies and support for those who are most affected. In the medium term, better curation and use of administrative, survey, and identification data can guide policy choices in an environment of limited fiscal space and competing priorities. In the longer term, the hope is that economies will be able to do more than simply recover lost ground. Ambitious, evidence-driven policy measures in health, education, and social protection can pave the way for today’s children to surpass the human capital achievements and quality of life of the generations that preceded them.

Human Capital and Institutions is concerned with human capital in its many dimensions and brings to the fore the role of political, social, and economic institutions in human capital formation and economic growth. Written by leading economic historians, including pioneers in historical research on human capital, the chapters in this text offer a broad-based view of human capital in economic development. The issues they address range from nutrition in pre-modern societies to twentieth-century advances in medical care; from the social institutions that provided temporary relief to workers in the middle and lower ranges of the wage scale to the factors that affected the performance of those who reached the pinnacle in business and art; and from political systems that stifled the advance of literacy to those that promoted public and higher education. Just as human capital has been a key to economic growth, so has the emergence of appropriate institutions been a key to the growth of human capital.